Ah, but they have replaced "chemical-free" makeup with "natural mineral" makeup.

Now minerals have been the base of most cosmetics since way before Cleopatra powdered her nose. And some of those nice natural minerals contained lead, antimony and mercury. Today, those toxic minerals usually are only found in ethnic makeups imported here, and periodically the CDC will do articles poisoning cases from some of these.

So today, we have no toxic minerals in our makeup, right? WRONG. Today the major mineral base for almost all our cosmetics, titanium dioxide. It is listed by IARC as a lung carcinogen in about 2008. NIOSH listed it as a carcinogen a couple decades ago and was ignored as usual.. Now NIOSH has set special air quality standards (RELs) for the nanoparticle sized TiO2--which is the usual particle size used in cosmetics.

And NOW class, your assignment is too look at the advertising for "airbrush" makeups in which nanoparticles of TiO2 get airborne. A chorus makeup room where this stuff is used develops a strange slightly foggy look.

Then go to the FDA regulations and you will find that FDA NEVER approves of any cosmetic ingredient for inhalation. These are misbranded products in my estimation and no one is lifting a finger to stop them. I trying, and you can guess which finger I'm lifting.

Here are some fun facts from a presentation ( "Chemicals: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly") that I did a few years back on misconceptions about chemicals and perceived risk - mostly propagated by advertising. My favorite commercial (have not seen it in a long time) was "chemical free" make-up.

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